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Things had finally started to fall into place again for Tourmaline. She had a good job, a good relationship with her boss, and whatever she and Ken had going on made her happy and satisfied. Speaking of her roommate, she and Ken were well into the middle of the semester of their night classes, and they were progressing well in both of them, even if the teen had to coax him to study most days.

Which is what they had been doing until distraction quickly took its course and ceased all school related productivity. Eventually, the pair found themselves asleep in Tourma's room, books and papers strewn carelessly about.

"LET'S PLAY A LOVE GAME, PLAY A LOVE GAME. DO YOU WANT LOVE, OR YOU WANT FAME?"

Tourma jostled with a groggy start as her cell phone blared cheerfully on the nightstand next to the bed. The night stand that the Skullmonkey had to clamber over Ken in order to reach and silence.

"Hello?" She finally mumbled while attempting to untangle herself from the covers, gather her bearings, and wake up enough to hold a conversation.

"Tourma?" Stazja's voice answered. She sounded exhausted and about ready to cry, and that fact alone terrified Tourmaline.

"What's wrong?" Tourma asked dutifully while rubbing her face with a groan.

That apparently broke whatever straw that had been holding the other teenager up emotionally, because suddenly, a torrent of tears and frantic Polish bombarded her through the speaker. Automatically, she herself switched to the same language, trying to calm her aunt down and make sense of what Stazja was saying.

When she finally did, her heart stopped. Everything stopped. She found herself unable to breathe with tears running down her face as if on a mission. At some point, the phone fell from her hand and became lost in the blankets, Stazja's voice still coming from it in frantic bursts.

Tourma, however, simply stared off into the darkness, digesting the news her aunt had just delivered to her.

It wasn't real. It couldn't be real. In an instant, Stazja was entirely forgotten.

Her head spun violently, or maybe the room was actually what spun and turned around her. She felt cold and sweaty all at the same time. Maybe this was all a hallucination and she had the flu.

Suddenly, Ken's voice broke through her haze, and suddenly the room came into sharp clarity. Well, as much as it could in the dark. Even though Ken sounded like he was underwater, Tourma still comprehended enough to answer. She continued to stare straight ahead, rigid. "Babcia was attacked. They don't know if she's going to make it..."

Saying out loud somehow made it more real, and she began to shake, trying not to break into sobs. In the end, she failed and her breath escaped in short, pained bursts, as she broke down entirely.

Reality, as she knew it, had shattered.

Her mind soon became a violent whirlwind of memories and 'what ifs', flashes of her childhood careened through her mind at a dizzying rate. At one moment she remembered acutely her excitement at actually being lifted and spun around by the vampire, and in another moment, their combined laughter filled her ears as they watched a child on a leash-vest plow continually getting yanked back by its mother.

More memories continued, none of them were negative. Still, Tourma leaned into his comforts as if her life depended on it. Right then, it felt that it did.

Ken's question snapped her back to reality. A reality that was crumbling around her at that very moment. "They don't know," she began, attempting and failing to talk between her sobs and labored breathing. "Stazja, she said that Babcia just kept screaming and bleeding... Then she started to have seizures..." She trailed off, unable to keep describing what Stazja had told her in her frantic phone call.

"She's a vampire... She can't die again right?" Tourma turned to look at him, face red and tear stained as she searched frantically for any strand of hope to cling to.

She desperately leaned into the touch of his hand, smearing her tears all over the place. One of her hands reached up to overlap his and keep it there, while the other found its way into gripping the wrist to the same hand cupping her cheek. The heat and familiarity of his touch calmed her somewhat, and at that point, she was willing to take anything she could get.

His verbal offer was followed by a shaky set of nods from her, and then she realized that she didn't know where Babcia was, exactly.

"Stazja!" She choked out abruptly, eyes going wide as she frantically began to search out her phone in the dark. By the time she found it, the blankets were strewn about randomly, mostly on the floor.

Cursing to herself under her breath in Polish, Tourma redialed the Jivvin and was soon conversing at a dizzying pace in her grandmother's language. Finally, after a bit of arguing, she hung up and sighed deeply. "She's at the best vampire hospital in Durem."

Keeping busy sounded like a wonderful idea. "I think... I need to shower?" She glanced over him for approval, no longer crying but appearing very lost.

"Sure," she said absently and out of habit, even though the last thing on her mind was food. Running a hand over her face she stopped and glanced around the dark room for a clue of what e she should do next. The teen felt very tired and very awake all at the same time, and grunted as she shoveled her legs out of bed and onto the floor.

As an automatic afterthought, she turned to awkwardly face the foxcoon for a moment. "Thanks Ken..." Bobbing her head in a wobbly nod, she paused for a moment before heaving herself up and heading towards the bathroom

Somehow, Tourma made it through the shower and into clothes, though it took her longer than usual. Not that she noticed. When she finally was decent and dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants, she found her way down to the kitchen in search of Ken and company.

The last thing she wanted to be was alone.

The sizzling and smell of the food led her straight to him, and she immediately moved behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, nuzzling her face into his back and breathing in his scent. Closing her eyes, she tried to pretend that everything was okay, but the peace lasted only seconds, if that.

"Did you want to shower before we leave?" She mumbled into his back, tightening her embrace and winding her tail around his.